We all need human friends, not only in the days of our
gladness and joy — but still more in the days of our sorrow and suffering.
We need a human hand to hold ours, when we are passing through experiences
of anguish. We want someone beside us, in the days of our trial. I have read
of a patient in one of the hospitals in London who was about to undergo a
serious and dangerous operation. The surgeon asked her if she thought she
was strong enough to endure it. She answered, after a moment's hesitation,
"Yes, if Mrs. Stanley will come and sit beside me." We crave companionship,
especially in the time when our burdens are heavy and we are passing through
experiences of anguish.

No life can reach its best alone. One log on a
fire will not burn brightly — but if two logs are piled together then the
one kindles the other, and the fire burns hotly. Two are better than one. We
can do more work — if we have companionship. We can fight more bravely in
life's battles — if another is fighting beside us. In all of life,
companionship strengthens. Not only are two better than one — but two
are better than two. That is, two together are better than two working
separately.

Yet not everyone that comes near to us or that might want
to come into our life — is fit to be our friend. One of the most serious
responsibilities of life, is the responsibility of choosing friends.
This is especially true in the case of young people. Youth is the time when
friendships are most easily formed. All of life is new, all of the world is
new. The friendships of the youthful days are apt to stay in the life unto
the end. Really the choice of friends is in large measure, the settling of a
young person's whole future. The kind of friends we take into our life in
the early days — we are apt to keep always.

If we accept and choose those who are godly, refined, and
inspiring — we are setting our life in the direction of whatever things are
true, whatever things are just, whatever things are lovely. But if, on the
other hand, we attach ourselves in friendships in youth to those who are
unworthy, whose life is earthly and sinful, who are not true and noble — we
in effect, fix our place and our character in a drift which will be toward
things that are not wholesome, that do not tend to honor and beauty of soul.

We grow like those whom we love, in whom we believe, with
whom we mingle. If therefore we choose those who are not worthy, whose
character is bad, whose influence is unwholesome — we must be hurt by them.
On the other hand, if we choose for our friends those who are godly, those
who are pure and true, whose lives are full of inspiration — we cannot but
grow better. Many a person has been lifted up from a commonplace life into
nobleness and beauty — by the influence of a friend.

I know it is hard to make choice of friends. In a certain
sense young people's friends are chosen for them by their parents before
they are able to think seriously of the matter. In the early childhood days,
companionships are formed which almost certainly make life's first
friendships. Then Providence brings to us in various ways, through our daily
associations, those whom we take into our life as friends. Young people meet
others in school, in neighborhood gatherings, in church life, in the
associations of work and society. They do not choose in this case — people
are brought to them and set down close beside them. But even in these cases
— we should learn to discriminate between the good and the evil. Good seaman
do not let a ship drift on the waters, wherever the winds may blow it
or the tides and currents may carry it; good seaman sail the ship even
against the winds and the tides. So it should be in life. We should not
drift anywhere. God has given us a mind and a will — and we are to
think for ourselves and choose discriminately.

We should want friends also who have sympathy with
us. I mean those who can enter into our life. No other people can be true
companions to us. Sympathy is important, not only in the days of sorrow —
but also in the days of joy. It is easy enough to have friends who will feel
with us in our grief. When trouble falls upon us, those who have been
scarcely our friends in the past, will turn to us with kindly feeling and
sympathetic heart and word. It is well to have true friends in the
hours of adversity. One of the best things about friendship, is not what it
does in the ordinary days — but what we know it will do when the hour
of need comes to us. When therefore we are stricken down and are in
trouble or in sorrow — a friend who is a friend indeed, will come to us with
true sympathy.

But we also need a friend who will come to us in our
times of joy, who will understand our glad days and sympathize with
us in our most happy moods. Some people are always envious, of
those who are happy and prosperous. More friendships fail at this point than
fail in the time of sorrow or need. True sympathy enters with us into
every experience of our life.

We also want others who will think of our highest and
best good. Too many friends bring no strength into our life. We get
no upward aspirations from them. They put no brave thoughts into our
mind or heart. They move along comfortably in easy-going ways, with a sort
of placid companionship which takes its color from our own experience — and
gives to us no help. If we are in trouble, these friends come to us and
sympathize with us in a certain way. They pity us and cry with us,
saying, "How sorry I am!" But they leave us no stronger. True
friendship in such moods, does not pity us too much, does not say too
many soft things to us. Coddling is one of the very worst
things friendship can do. It is not petting and pampering
which we need — such manifestations only make us weaker, and lead us
to miserable self-pity. What we want is a friend who will put into
our heart thoughts of better things than those we have yet reached,
who will ever inspire us toward loftier reaches of life, turning us
toward the mountain-tops and bidding us to climb the rugged slopes to the
summit. True friendship would inspire us always to do our best.

When true friends come to us in our time of weakness or
suffering, instead of pitying us, telling us how sorry they
are — they speak brave words to us, heartening us, cheering us, arousing us
to nobler efforts. What we want from our friends, is not the lifting away
of our burdens — but new strength to help us to bear the
burdens manfully and heroically. It is a misfortune when we attach ourselves
to a friend who merely pities us, and does not inspire us to
anything nobler and truer.

There is another phase of the matter of friendship which
is very important. I have spoken thus far of the responsibility of
choosing friends, of thinking of their influence upon our own
lives. This is the most serious phase of the subject. We are always
responsible for what we admit into our life. While God is our keeper — we
are to watch continually, that nothing evil may ever be admitted,
nothing that would stain or hurt us.

But there is another side. We are responsible also for
our own influence upon those who call us friends. We are responsible for
every word we speak, for everything we do, for every disposition, for every
look which may leave its influence or impression upon any other life. While
therefore we carefully guard the doors of our own heart, so as to admit
nothing which would harm us — we must guard with equal care and diligence,
the influences which we put forth upon the lives of others.

A story is told of Charles Lamb, that once a young person
evidently wished to have his friendship and give him confidence and trust.
Charles Lamb wrote to the person warning against such confidence, and
saying, "I am not fit to be your friend." It was a brave thing to do. But it
is something which everyone should do, unless he is sure that he can be true
to the person who comes to him, and that every influence of his life
may be uplifting, purifying, inspiring and noble.

But of all friends in the world, there is no one who can
bring to us so much blessing, as Christ will do. He wants to be our
friend. He stands at the door of every life and knocks for admittance, that
he may come in and take the inner place in our heart. The friendship of
Christ is pure and holy and heavenly. Never in all the
history of the world, has anyone been hurt by anything that Jesus has done.
Therefore take Christ as your personal friend. Whatever other friends
may do for you — he can do more. As sweet as human friendship is, and as
rich as it is — it falls far short of meeting the deepest needs of our
nature. Christ alone can answer all the heart's cravings, and satisfy
all the heart's yearnings. Christ's friendship alone, can give us all the
help we need. He is a very present help in every time of need. Human
friendship can go but a little way with us. Soon we must part company, even
with the holiest of them. One of every two friends must sit by the other's
bedside, and hear the last words and feel the last hand-clasp and say the
last farewell. But Christ's friendship goes on forever. He loves us with an
everlasting love.

His friendship takes us also, in our sinfulness and
guilt, in our defilement and defects — and restores us to beauty and brings
us at last home to the blessedness of eternal life. Whatever other
friendships you may miss — miss not Christ's friendship. Whatever else you
may leave out of your life — let no one leave Christ out of his life.